


petrichor

by starxreactor



Series: Stony Bingo 2019 [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Art, Artist Steve Rogers, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bittersweet, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canonical Character Death, Depression, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Sad with a Happy Ending, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Survivor Guilt, Therapy, well its more of a bittersweet ending depending on how you look at it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 13:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18757660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starxreactor/pseuds/starxreactor
Summary: Steve’s world has been grayscale since Tony died.The simplest of pleasures no longer appeal to him. Steve can’t even remember the last time he picked up a pencil and just started drawing. There used to be a time where, whenever he was upset, dark blues and blacks swirling around his chest, he would sit down with his notebook and his array of colored pencils and simply start bleeding all his feelings onto the page.That’s not to say that there literally is no color left in the world – it’s the same as it once was – but rather that Steve can’t bring himself to see it. With Tony gone, there’s nothing worthwhile left in the world.





	petrichor

**Author's Note:**

> The Stony relationship is really only implied? That was unintentional, but Steve is supposed to be in love with Tony. 
> 
> The background relationship is Sambucky.
> 
> Stony bingo square N5: AU – canon divergence, because Steve doesn't go back in time.
> 
> This is probably a mess. I've been working on it on and off for a few days, since the Far From Home trailer and seeing a Tumblr post that inspired me. It's just meant to be cathartic. I'm working through my feelings for what happened.

Steve’s world has been grayscale since Tony died.

The simplest of pleasures no longer appeal to him. Steve can’t even remember the last time he picked up a pencil and just started drawing. There used to be a time where, whenever he was upset, dark blues and blacks swirling around his chest, he would sit down with his notebook and his array of colored pencils and simply start bleeding all his feelings onto the page.

As he grew older and stronger, that became less of an occurrence and he took out his anger on punching bags. He painted them red and blue, screaming out his rage and pain, with his fists, rather than with a paintbrush.

Now, he can’t even do that, because there is no color. All that’s left is black and gray where there were once vivid reds and oranges and blues and purples. Tony left, and he took all the joy and love and colors of the world with him, too.

That’s not to say that there literally is no color left in the world – it’s the same as it once was – but rather that Steve can’t bring himself to see it. With Tony gone, there’s nothing worthwhile left in the world.

  
  


Sam and Bucky are worried about him, constantly nagging him about seeing a therapist, and possibly a psychologist. He hears them talking about him at night, when they think he’s asleep and dreaming of his traumas in monochrome. That they’ve never seen his depression so bad.

“He had his moments,” Sam says to Bucky. “You just didn’t see most of them.”

“Still,” Bucky mumbles, voice low, “they’ve never been this bad.”

There’s a sigh. “He’s mourning, Bucky. What do you expect? It takes time to heal.”

“I _know_ that,” Bucky says tersely. “You don’t think that I, of all people, know that? I’ve known Steve since he was a little kid. Even when he was at his lowest, he managed to get back up.”

“Everyone has their breaking point,” Sam says softly. “He’s been through a lot. Maybe this was the final push.”  
  
There’s a pause. “You giving up on him, then?” Bucky asks, voice incredulous and disbelieving.

“I never said that,” Sam says patiently, the way he speaks to the veterans at the VA. “I’m just trying to get you to understand that this isn’t some easy fix. He’s not going to wake up one day and snap out of it. I’ll help him, of course, but there’s only so much I can do. The rest is up to him.”

Steve tunes them out after, not interested enough in listening to them speak about him.  
  


 

Steve is aware that he’s in the throes of depression, of survivor’s guilt. They’re not new companions to him. But he always managed to find some sort of purpose before. Drown them out before they could swallow him up.

Tony was that purpose, once.

  
  


Everywhere he goes, there’s another reminder of their savior – on posters and billboards and murals and statues. The world is in mourning, and people have taken it upon themselves to show their gratitude. Not that it matters, because it’s not as though Tony can see any of it. And he never will, because he gave his life for the universe.

Objectively, Steve knows how good a deal it was. A few hundred lives for the trillions of lives in the universe. It could have been worse. Much worse. But it’s hard to tell that to the persistent ache in his chest, enveloping every part of him and dragging him in until all he can feel is the pain in his heart.

  
  


Steve manages to sit down at the couch one day, notebook in hand and colored pencils at his side. Sam’s face is inscrutable, but Steve can tell he’s excited.

He’s not in the mood to draw anything major. He’ll just doodle something with what he has. Steve picks up one of the pencils idly, bringing the sharp tip to the blank paper. His hand is shaking as he leaves a streak. It’s gray, but the label says, “Crimson.”

He presses too hard and breaks the pencil, the lead crumbling and leaving smears on the paper.

He wonders if that’s what Natasha looked like when she fell. He wouldn’t know, though. It’s all gray to him.

  
  


Steve trashes his stuff after that.

He should feel bad about it, wasting such expensive supplies, but he feels nothing but rage and hopelessness and despair, a dangerous concoction that had this breakdown a long time coming.

Once his room is ruined and there are paint splatters, crushed papers, and broken chalks and pastels littering every possible surface, he kneels down, breathing heavily. Even the anger wasn’t enough to bring back the red that once colored his world, and that, more than anything, makes him stop.

Why isn’t he happy? Why can’t he feel? The world is back to normal, he’s got both Sam and Bucky with him again, so why can he only see in monochrome?

Steve thinks he’s calmed down for now, but then he finds an old painting of Tony in the armor, and punches a hole through it.

(Later, he’ll regret it, but right now, all he can think is how he misses the red that once shaped his life)

  
  


Steve’s walking through New York City at Bucky’s suggestion, hands shoved in his pockets and aimlessly wandering from place to place. He has no desire to eat, or shop, or check out all the new things of the 21st century that Tony or Natasha would gleefully explain to him.

Still, he’s out here because Bucky thought it would do him some good to get back out in the world, instead of spending all his time cooped up in the rebuilt compound.

Steve’s been walking around for half an hour when he sees it: a giant, intricate mural of Iron Man. He stops and stares at it, at the smooth swipes of paint, the shading, the flowers and candles tastefully arranged underneath.

It’s not the first graffiti art he’s seen of Tony, and it definitely won’t be the last, but he can still feel it pulling at his heartstrings.

For the first time, he wishes he could see it in color. He’s sure it would look beautiful – even in black and gray, it’s stunning. There’s all these gorgeous murals of Tony out there, and he can’t even take the time to appreciate them because of the lack of color in his life.

Steve goes home with all these thoughts of color swirling in his mind, staining it bright blue and sunshine yellow.

  
  


Steve tries again later.

He gathers up his trashed supplies, fixing them up the best he can. He smooths out the folds in his papers, sharpens his broken pencils. And he sits down right there on the floor and tries drawing a simple tree – that ends up becoming a forest.

The finished product isn’t... awful. He’s out of touch, hasn’t done this in – years, probably. When did Thanos snap that first time again?

He can’t help the frustration from bubbling up, though, and he tears the paper apart, tossing the remains in his trash can. Why can’t he do anything right?

Then he sits there, head in his hands, trying hard not to cry.

  
  


“How’re you doing, Stevie?” Bucky asks, coming in the room later. He takes one look at the mess scattered around and blinks. “When did this happen?”  
  
Steve glances up from where he’s sitting in the center of the floor. “A few days ago,” he mumbles, straightening himself and standing up. He crosses his arms over his chest, wishing he could make himself smaller.

“Oh,” Bucky says. “Maybe we should’ve checked on you earlier.”

It’s not lost on Steve that Sam and Bucky are more like his parents than his friends right now.

  
  


Steve doesn’t understand why can’t just – _do it_. Why is art – why is drawing, painting, something that once came so naturally to him, so difficult? There used to be a time when it was all he needed for all his frustration to leach out of him. Now, the simple act of drawing a circle can have him throwing his notebook away in rage.

He regrets it, of course. He regrets everything he does. But he can’t stop.

  
  


Sam eventually forces him to see a therapist. “It’s an outrage that SHIELD never gave you one when you woke up,” he mutters as Steve walks into the office.

  
  


The session itself is not horrible. Steve had expected the therapist to grate on his nerves, but – Aisha, that’s her name – is understanding and calm even as he shouts.

He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror to the side at one point. His face is – it’s not him. It’s not Steve Rogers. It’s some monster using his body. Immediately, all his anger becomes shame. He wilts, sitting back down in the chair and staring at the therapist like a kicked puppy.

“What’s wrong?” Aisha asks.

“It’s not – please help me,” Steve begs, on the verge of tears. “I don’t like this person I’ve become.”

Aisha nods slowly, and then she says, “I can’t help you. I can only guide you so that you can help yourself.”

They talk for a long time afterwards.

  
  


Steve’s always been an angry person, he realizes after talking to Aisha a few times. He just… had outlets to take his anger out on. Art, fighting. Sometimes arguing with Tony.

What was it that Zemo said? _“There’s a bit of green in the blue of your eyes. So nice to finally find a flaw.”_

Point is, he had ways to calm himself down. And now he’s suffering from depression and survivor’s guilt – well, he always did, but it’s gotten worse since Tony died – so all that pent up anger and hopelessness is leaking itself out in unhealthy ways because the things that used to bring him some sort of pleasure no longer do. And, well, he’s completely lost his drive as an Avenger, so it’s not as though he’s going out regularly to fight crime. It’s a dangerous mix, one that Steve worries will only lead to someone getting hurt.

  
  


It gets easier, he thinks, after he starts talking to Aisha.

One of the first things she had tried to get across to him was that depression, survivor’s guilt, all this rage he harbored deep inside of himself – there was no easy fix, no magical cure. He couldn’t expect himself to wake up one day and be completely fine, because that was just setting himself up with false hope that would only make him crash even harder in the end.

Steve understands that, he really does, but he doesn’t have to like it. He doesn’t want to live like this anymore.

Then he remembers Tony, and all the PTSD, all the anxiety, all the self-hatred he possessed until the very end. He never got over it, but he was able to find happiness with Pepper and Morgan – and maybe, just maybe, the Avengers.

Natasha grew up without any sort of self-esteem – she was taught she wasn’t a person, merely a vessel for killing. She still had nightmares from her time in the Red Room up until her death. She didn’t get over it, either, but she was able to find a new purpose with her family.

They may be gone, but their legacies live on. That’s his purpose – living up to the two of them.

It’s going to be an uphill battle, one that will never stop until he dies, but he has a newfound determination to take his demons and lock them away.

  
  


Slowly, the monochromatic tones of the world get the palest of shades back in them. He looks at the grass, and it’s no longer a boring gray. There’s a slight tinge of green.

  
  


Aisha told him it wasn’t a linear process.

There would be times where it seemed like all he could go was up, and then other times where suddenly he would drop down as though he were on a rollercoaster.

This is one of those times.

Steve’s been in his bed all day, staring at the ceiling. He can hear Sam and Bucky talking, possibly about him, but he doesn’t care.

He just wants to feel something, anything. He wants the colors back. He thought they _were_ coming back, but he woke up today and all he could see was a field of black and gray.

  
  


His depressive episode lasts a day or two. Steve doesn’t bother to check. Afterwards, he’s exhausted from the mental stress. He skips out on a therapy session. He lounges around on the couch watching TV, but it’s more because he’s lazy than anything else. Sam and Bucky are… somewhere. Probably making out.

Eventually, Steve decides it’s time to get up. To continue his life. Well, what little of a life he has.

Maybe he should find some sort of job. He used to be a counselor after the snap, and the thought makes him laugh. There’s no way he can do that right now. Not when he’s such a mess himself. Maybe… maybe some time in the future. But not now.

He heads back into his room. He had finally bothered to clean it up at some point, and the room is spotless. Not a splatter of paint or pencil shaving anywhere.

An absurd thought strikes him, one which he tries to shake away but can’t. He thinks he liked the mess – not the cause of it, but just seeing the chaos. It was a bit like his mind. Messy, grayscale, but full of passion. Seeing the room like this only makes him more empty.

Steve opens the closet, spotting a container of his paints in the back. For the first time in what seems like forever, he gets a small smile. It’s barely noticeable to anyone else, but there is a slight quirk to the corner of his lips that’s enough to melt the ice swallowing his heart.

Steve grabs the container, sitting down right where he’s standing and pulling out the paints. He’s getting a strange sort of giddiness, a freeing lightness to his chest that has been missing since before the serum. It’s only been a few months since Nat and Tony died, but for once he can think of only the good times he had with them, rather than fixate on the fact of their deaths.

He loses himself in his mind for the next few hours – days, really – too focused on getting this done, on expressing the pale pinks and yellows bursting out of his chest.

  
  


Seeing the result of whatever mania took hold of him leaves him feeling light, free, as clear as the sound of a tinkling bell. He stands in the middle of his room, body covered in layers and layers of paint, and stares at what’s he’s painted. All around the room there’s swirls and swirls of the brightest colors he has melding together in a harmonious rainbow. The colors blend together, leading to the one wall that’s taken up by the arc reactor and the widow’s symbol.

It’s been – days, he thinks, since he started. He was so lost in working that he hasn’t slept, barely eating, too, save for whatever Sam and Bucky brought him. Steve realizes that he may be taking after Tony more than he thought, and that only leaves a warm feeling spreading from his core, because it’s like there’s a piece of Tony left within him.

Steve glances around and realizes there’s several plates stacked up in a corner, some of which still have bites of food left.

His stomach takes that opportunity to let out a loud growl, and Steve lets out a breath of laughter. He hopes this sensation of freedom, of happiness, of peace stays. He missed the colors that his mind is now swimming in.

  
  
  


Of course, that’s not the end of it. He still has his bad days. He still has to go to speak with Aisha. There are days where all he can focus on is the boring sludge of black left in his world, wondering why Nat and Tony had to take all the colors with them.

But overall, he thinks he’s doing better. He has a purpose now – sort of. He still remains in the compound, but he’s given up Captain America. That honor belongs to Sam.

What Steve does, instead, is let the colors in his heart and mind run free. He makes paintings, sells them. He lets his thoughts out in paint splatters and streaks of lead and wax. He delivers speeches, of hope and love, of empathy and joy and togetherness.

He wants the world to always, always know that Natasha and Tony are there for them, even though they’re dead.

  
  


Steve sets his bag down as he stares at the blank wall, opening it up. There’s a distinct lack of art here – taken up by dull browns and grays and blacks. He can change that.

Even now, he still gets nervous letting the colors out. He wonders if it’ll work, if he’ll suddenly step backwards and he can’t discern what each color is. But he has to deal with it as it comes. He owes it to Tony.

Steve takes a deep breath, calming his nerves and settling his aching heart, and picks up the spray can.

(The next day, crowds of people gather to stare in awe at the newest mural. It’s a bright, bold red interspersed with pops of electric blue. The most notable thing about it, however, is the complete lack of Iron Man anywhere. Instead, it’s a bust of Tony Stark in the colors of his armor, with the exception of the glowing blue circle in the center of his chest.

Underneath are the words, “Proof that Tony Stark has a heart.”)

**Author's Note:**

> So, Endgame broke me. I literally haven’t been able to focus on anything else since I saw it on the 25th, and I can’t bring myself to write. I have two gift exchange fics due soon that I haven’t even started, but I just can’t bring myself to write anything that’s not Endgame-related. I’ve been writing on and off, a bunch of the things I did write I don’t want to post because they’re completely self-indulgent, but some of them I will polish up and post eventually. 
> 
> Iron Man came out when I was seven. I remember seeing the trailer for it and thinking how cool of a superhero he was. I never got to see the movie until I was fourteen, but he made a lasting impression on me. I came out of The Avengers, when I was twelve, with Tony Stark as my favorite character. When I rewatched the MCU from the beginning in the summer of 2015, Iron Man just cemented my love for him.
> 
> I haven’t felt for another character as deeply as Tony. I’ve had favorites, sure, some of whom came close to this, but no character will ever be able to top the love I have for him. Even now, two weeks after, I am so deep in the throes of grief that I can barely accept his death. In fact, I can’t. It’s not real to me. He’s still alive, and happy, and making up (or out) with Steve. Just writing this is making me cry.
> 
> I feel like I’ve lost a part of myself. Although he may be fictional, his presence is wholly real and tangible. So many of my life decisions have been driven by Tony. What to wear, what kind of music I like, what field I wanted to get into (it was engineering, and until I decided I was too bad at math to do it I was set on this). His smile and laughter has gotten me through some tough times, and it was the reminder that I would soon get to see him on the big screen again that allowed me to push on through even when I was struggling. He’s cheered me up on days where I couldn’t help but fall into a depressive slump.
> 
> I love you 3000, Tony Stark, and until the end of time. Thank you so much for these amazing eleven years. Even if you never appear on screen again, your legacy will live on in our hearts. 
> 
> Robert Downey Jr., thank you for what you’ve done for the MCU and for your fans. You’re the real life Tony Stark. I love you 3000.


End file.
